Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday warned that
sanctions imposed on Syria by the Arab League will not halt Syrian President Bashar Assad's violent crackdown on protesters calling for him to step down.
During and interview with Army Radio, Barak warned that the decision to suspend Syria from the Arab League will make Assad more brutal. "He has passed the point of no return," the defense minister added.
RELATED:'Turkey says crowds attack its Syrian missions'Obama: Syria more isolated after Arab League moveMeanwhile, Syria is calling for an emergency summit of Arab League heads of state to discuss unrest in the country, state television said on Sunday, a day after it was suspended by the League.
Quoting
an official source, the television said the objective of the proposed
summit would be to discuss the unrest's "negative repercussions on the
Arab situation."
Scenes of violence and chaos followed Saturday's announcement. Security forces shot dead four people who shouted slogans against Assad at a rally organized by the authorities in the city of Hama on Sunday to show popular anger at an Arab League decision to suspend Syria, local activists said.
"Security forces were leading public workers and students into Orontes
Square when groups broke away and started shouting 'the people want the
fall of the regime'," one of the activists in Hama, 240 km north of
Damascus, said.
"They escaped into the alleyways but were followed, and four were killed," the activist added.
State
television said millions of Syrians assembled in public arenas across
the country to denounce the Arab League decision, which came in response
to a crackdown by Assad's forces on pro-democracy protesters, which the
United Nations says has killed 3,500 people.
The
television showed crowds carrying Syrian flags and posters of Assad at
public squares in Damascus, the eastern city of Raqqa and the coastal
cities of Latakia and Tartous.